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butterflySam: “Just take it one step at a time, all right? Now, who is it possessing?”Dean: “It’s usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress.”“Phantom Traveler” (1x04)
As far as we know, every demon was once a human. Usually, a human who made some kind of deal – full-blown Supernatural witches are generally humans who sell their souls to demons for magic powers, but demons buy souls for all kinds of trades. And people sell souls for all kinds of reasons. That means that souls in different levels of ‘moral decay’, as it were, all end up in Hell to be processed. If you start with a different source product, you’re going to get a different end result.
Demons are people. They’re damaged and corrupt by their time in Hell, but they remain individuals after they’ve become demonic. So, while all demons have a tendency towards killing, torturing, and creating chaos, they do tend to specialize based on their personalities and preferences.
For example, Abaddon opted to play hard-ball for the most part – she acted her role as Josie for a brief time but did not appear to have any interest in corrupting or swaying the Men of Letters, only in destroying them. Instead, she favored brute strength and intimidation tactics, even when she was at a tactical disadvantage. Abaddon, rather than trade or coax souls from people, taught the demons under her how to rip the souls directly from people and bottle them. Other demons have had other areas of strength, whether that be in the realm of concentrated torture, like Alistair, or creating mass disasters, like the demon in “Phantom Traveler”.
But the kind of demon that has featured most frequently on the show is the Manipulator. Most crossroads demons fit into this category, as well as heavy-hitters like Crowley, Meg and Ruby.
Before I begin, a brief note on the topic of affection, as this is something that inevitably comes up when talking about manipulation. Frequently voiced is the question of whether or not the manipulator has 'genuine feelings’ towards the person they’re manipulating. This isn’t a question the text can ever really answer definitively because a manipulative character is, by definition, untrustworthy. Therefore, I am putting the entire topic of affection in a box, out of the way of the discussion. The manipulation is genuine whether the feelings are true or merely feigned and so, in this meta, questions such as whether or not Ruby loved Sam or if Crowley cares about Dean or Meg felt affection for Cas (for certain values of love/care/affection) are deemed ultimately irrelevant to the issue at hand, and even potentially a distraction from the harm the manipulation does to its targets.
Okay, then, let’s start at the beginning. Or, at least, a beginning.
The first thing we hear about demons is that they get to you through your vulnerabilities. This doesn’t prove true when it comes to demonic possession – demons seem to be able to claim anyone who isn’t warded against them, though a particularly strong or determined person can fight against the actions they’re being forced to take.
But it does make you easier to manipulate and, for the demons of the current generation, manipulation is the name of the game. Now, the reason I’m focusing on Meg, Ruby, Crowley is because we’ve seen them all practice the same M.O. and so the patterns are easier to break down and talk about as a group. I’m going to go through the general pattern first, and then break it down for each relationship.
All three of these demons play(ed) the “but I can really understand you” game very well. They play at being sympathetic but, all the while, they are undermining their chosen target in order to attempt to create a dependency on themselves.
Because, the implication becomes when the manipulation is allowed to continue for long enough, the reason they can understand is actually because their target is dirty and wrong and broken. The reason they can understand is because their target is just as terrible as them. They create a false sense of camaraderie that functions to drag down and emotionally damage their target, to 'keep them in the darkness’. Basically – “We’re just as evil as each other, but that’s okay, because I like you bad and that’s what matters.” It’s a brand of manipulation that functions to tear down the target’s sense of self and re-create them in the image of their manipulator. And once this identification is created, the demon leverages it to get the target to do what they want.
Now, this is something that can be done subconsciously or unintentionally, but Supernatural demons – and these three demons in particular – use it very deliberately as a weapon, as they have remarked upon in the text. Meg acknowledges to Sam in season seven that she 'worked on’ Cas to attempt to create a dependency on her, we see Crowley setting up tests to determine how deeply Dean has fallen under the habit of obeying/protecting Crowley, and Ruby, of course, admits to her own manipulations in her end monologue. They are all aware of their own power and choices, and they use that power to try to achieve their own ends.
Meg->Sam
Meg is assigned to manipulate Sam by Azazel. What we see here is essentially a trial-run for the format that Meg and other demons will use in the future. Meg starts by pretending that she and Sam are in a similar emotional situation – running away from an unhappy family life. She positions them both as rebels and free spirits. Her goal is to try to isolate Sam away from Dean, but she fails because the connection between Dean and Sam in season one is too strong to be overcome by the relatively short time she had to try to create a bond with Sam. Because she fails at the isolation stage and is unable to successfully keep Sam separated from Dean, she never gets the chance to move on to the next stage, where she would begin to tear down Sam’s sense of self and try to get him to identify with her perspective on him instead.
While Meg wasn’t able to get Sam to do what she wanted him to do, she was able to create enough of a trace of a sympathetic bond to get him to confide in her years later after she’d violated him and killed & tortured people that he knew, despite her never showing any remorse for her actions (though a large part of that was Sam already feeling isolated and like he had no one else to talk to). If I were going to score Meg’s manipulation of Sam, I would give her 0 (out of 5) points for immediate results, 1 point for immediate emotional sway, but 2 points for creating a mild positive residue that lasted for years afterward.
Key moments:
Meg’s first moment with Sam in “Scarecrow” (1x11) is a tease – they meet on the side of the road but she almost immediately ends up leaving. That way, he gets interested in her but doesn’t get to satisfy his curiosity right away, ideally keeping his interest level high. Ruby will pull a similar trick at the start of season three, when she saves Sam’s life and then leaves before he can ask her any questions.
Meg: “I had to get away from my family.”
Sam: “Why?”
Meg: “I love my parents. And they wanted what’s best for me. They just didn’t care if I wanted it. I was supposed to be smart. But not smart enough to scare away a husband. It’s just…because my family said so, I was supposed to sit there and do what I was told. So I just went on my own way instead. I’m sorry. The things you say to people you hardly know.”
Sam: “No, no, it’s okay. I know how you feel. Remember that brother I mentioned before, that I was road-tripping with? It’s, uh, it’s kind of the same deal.”
Meg: “And that’s why you’re not riding with him anymore? Here’s to us. The food might be bad, and the beds might be hard. But at least we’re living our own lives. And nobody else’s.”
Meg attempts to create a feeling of kinship between herself and Sam, being fairly successful, in a low-key way. We find out at the end of the episode that Meg is far from 'living her own life’ here; instead, she’s on orders from Azazel.
Meg: “But I don’t understand. You’re running back to your brother? The guy you ran away from? Why, because he won’t pick up his phone? Sam—come with me to California.”
Sam: “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Meg: “Why not?”
Sam: “He’s my family.”
Meg fails in her attempts to keep Sam and Dean separated. She doesn’t know yet why they’re important and she also doesn’t know quite enough about them as people in order to manipulate Sam properly.
In “Shadow” (1x16), her mission has changed, so her manipulation attempts are obvious and clumsy, meant to draw attention to what she’s doing. Her words cause some friction between Sam and Dean, but it also serves the purpose of getting Sam and Dean to investigate her and fall into her trap for them (and for John). She’s in a position of strength here and in “Salvation” (1x21) – like Crowley, Meg generally uses manipulation more often when she’s in a position of weakness; if she has the upper hand, she defaults to violence, torture, and assault (also like Crowley).
Ruby->Sam
Ruby, as a deep-cover agent, has to wear many hats over the course of her manipulation of Sam. First, she tries to create a bond as a fellow warrior, but this fails, at least in part because she has a hard time hiding her animosity towards Dean. After Dean’s death, she remakes herself as someone who is there to support, encourage, and enable Sam in the wake of losing his brother. Much as Crowley will do in season nine with Dean, she positions herself as the replacement for a missing brother.
Later, she also uses both sex and blood to cement their bond. Sam forms a physical dependency on her, which she leverages to further create an emotional dependency. In her second primary vessel, Ruby casts herself as more sympathetic (smaller, more vulnerable, less aggressive), allowing Dean to be the antagonist in their relationship. She subtly (and not-so-subtly) encourages Sam to hide things from Dean, knowing that his guilt and shame will separate the brothers further. While Sam does continue to have doubts, she is always – either through direct manipulation or lies – able to overcome them to keep him on the path towards killing Lilith and releasing Lucifer.
Ruby was able to get Sam to do what she wanted and convinced him that they were on the same side, though he retained an ability to snap at her when she pushed too far. However, once she achieved her goal, her ending speech served as a burning of bridges. While the effects of Ruby’s manipulation do remain, Sam is horrified and damaged by how deeply she manipulated him, rather than still believing anything she’d told him about their 'connection’ of seasons three and four.
I would give Ruby 5 points for immediate results, 4 points for immediate emotional sway, but 0 points for positive emotional residue.
Key moments:
In “The Magnificent Seven” (3x01), Ruby saves Sam’s life, tosses off a quick quip, and exits.
The personality that Ruby establishes in her first vessel is fast with a one-liner, sarcastic, a great fighter. She’s a lot like Dean’s surface persona. In fact, I’d argue that she’s too much like Dean – this is one (of several) reasons that she takes the opportunity to change her approach when she changes bodies – she needs to fill Dean’s place in Sam’s life without being so obvious about the attempt. Ruby 1.0 was too obvious, too straight-forward, too aggressive. It worked to get Sam’s attention, but in order to pull him in for the long haul, she later modified and softened her approach.
In “Sin City” (3x04), Ruby begins to make it clear to Sam that he’s going to have to get dirty if he wants to save his brother. This is the beginning of what I talked about above, where she begins to manipulate Sam into seeing things from her perspective (or, as Crowley might say, through her eyes), rather than his own. She tells him:
Ruby: “This won’t be easy, Sam. You’re gonna have to do things that go against that gentle nature of yours. There’ll be collateral damage… But, it has to be done.”
Sam: “Well, I don’t have to like it.”
Ruby: “No. You wouldn’t be Sam if you did. On the bright side, I’ll be there with you. That little fallen angel on your shoulder.”
By “Malleus Maleficarum” (3x09), Sam is defending Ruby against Dean and he’s also embracing her ideas more, too, and (without naming her as one of the reasons) defending the idea that they have to do bad things to accomplish good ends. The ends justify the means. This is also the episode where Ruby starts to try to work on Dean, from a different angle, which is much less successful than her work with Sam. But, overall, Ruby’s ideas have lingered – it was Ruby who argued that the death with the knife was both more pragmatic and more merciful than exorcism, and, likely without realizing it, over the years, Sam and Dean have shifted their methods to be more in align with what Ruby argued they should be.
But it’s Dean’s death that really starts the ball rolling. Dean’s death creates a perfect 'two birds, one stone’ situation as set-up by Ruby and Lilith – Dean is in Hell to get tortured until he breaks the first seal, while Ruby has time and space to work on Sam without Dean interfering (in “Lazarus Rising” (4x01), Bobby mentions not having seen Sam in months).
This time and space is essential. Isolation and separation are vital to making the target rely on the manipulator rather than on a genuine, trustworthy source of support. Ruby shifts her approach, persistently wears Sam down until he gives in, until he’s dancing to her tune instead of his own, and all under the banner of avenging Dean’s death. Her set-up is so persuasive that Sam’s need for revenge persists the entirety of season four, despite the fact that Dean himself is standing there next to Sam.
The difference in their relationship is obvious from 4x01, when Sam not only goes along with Ruby’s lie about just being a random girl, but he does so easily and without hesitation. Even after Dean’s return, the lies and guilt and shame that have developed continue to facilitate the isolation that Dean’s death had kicked off. This gets more and more intense over the course of the season – we see Sam become increasingly convinced that Dean isn’t strong enough to make smart choices, but we also see Sam feel more and more like he’s a monster for being able to make those choices. And Ruby, as she promised back in “Sin City”, is there to help him every step along the way. Like Crowley will later do with Dean, she tests Sam – stays away to see how strong the cravings for her blood are, sets up situations where she can see how much he trusts her vs how much he trusts Dean.
In “When the Levee Breaks” (4x21), we see Sam making the same arguments to himself that Ruby made to him earlier in the season and in season three – it has to be done, his own moral integrity is a small price compared to killing Lilith, it’s proof that he’s strong (and Dean is weak).
Imaginary!Mary: “Not at all. You’re doing the right thing, Sam. What you’re doing is brave. You’re not being crazy, you’re being practical. Sam, I am so proud of you.”
Sam: “But—but Dean—“
Imaginary!Mary: “Your brother doesn’t understand. I was raised a hunter from a long line. We understand that there are gonna be hard choices. And we do what we have to to get the job done. Yes, our family is cursed. But you—you have the power to turn it into a gift. You can use it against them.”
Sam: “For revenge?”
Imaginary!Mary: “No, for justice. I know how scared you are.”
Sam: “What’s in me, Mom, it's—“
Imaginary!Mary: “Evil. And you know it.”
Sam: “What if it’s stronger than me? Look at me. What if Dean’s right?”
Imaginary!Mary: “Dean can never know how strong you are, because Dean is weak. Look at what he’s done to you. Locking you in here? He’s terrified. He’s in over his head. You have to go on without him. You have what it takes. You have to kill Lilith.”
Sam: “Even if it kills me.”
Imaginary!Mary: “Make my death mean something. I’m counting on you, Sam. Don’t let anyone or anything get in your way. Not even Dean.”
…
Imaginary!Dean: “I know why you really drink that blood, Sam.
Sam: “Just leave me alone.”
Imaginary!Dean: “Makes you feel strong. Invincible. A big bad wolf in a world of little pigs.”
Sam: “No. You’re wrong, Dean.”
Imaginary!Dean: “It’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s because your whole life, you felt different. Am I right?”
Sam: “Stop.”
Imaginary!Dean: “Oh, I hit a little close to home, huh? Not different because you were some lonely kid or because of your weirdo family.”
Sam: “Stop it.”
Imaginary!Dean: “Because you’re a monster.”
Sam: “Shut up! Just—shut. The hell. Up.”
Imaginary!Dean: “You were always a monster. And you only feel right when you’re sucking down more poison and more evil.”
Here we can see that Sam has internalized everything that Ruby has been training him to believe. Yes, there is something evil in him… but he can use it for good! It’s okay to hurt people if you’re doing it for the right reasons. That makes you strong. But being strong doesn’t make you less evil. This is Sam telling himself that he’s poison. But that at least he can use it for something good.
The nurse is then Sam’s big test – and it still, even at this late juncture, requires an extra push from Ruby, in the form of the faked voice-mail, to get him to take that step. But when he does do it, it proves to himself that he’s both strong and a monster. And then he’s ready to face Lilith and break that final seal.
Ruby succeeds in her manipulation of Sam, complete and absolute. She does her part for the cause. She dies still aglow from her victory – never finding out that her god had feet of clay.
And she leaves Sam with lasting emotional scars that, to this day, still have not fully healed.
Crowley->Castiel
After Lucifer was put in the cage, Crowley saw a power vacuum and grabbed for the crown. However, he doubted his ability to hold it. He wanted help. He realized that there was a potential power waiting out there, untapped by anyone on Earth, Heaven, or in Hell – the monster souls of Purgatory. The trick was that he didn’t know how to access Purgatory and use the souls as a power source. He also had another problem – Heaven might not approve of his plans, should they finish their civil war and turn their attention back downward. Luckily, he managed to figure out how to kill both those birds with the same stone – Castiel, the angel who’d fallen in order to stop the Apocalypse and who had been mysteriously brought back. Crowley had the plan all worked out before he even went to Castiel – and he’d already figured out the right levers to pull – a one-two punch of protecting Earth/Dean while saving Heaven.
Once they’re working together, Crowley tries to create the feeling that they’re partners. But while Crowley is able to get Castiel to agree with him on a functional level, he is never able to earn Castiel’s trust, which leads to Castiel turning the tables on Crowley at the end of season six and betraying him. And, in the aftermath of seasons six and seven, Castiel has retained a profound mistrust and dislike of Crowley.
I would rate Crowley 5 points for immediate results, 1 point for immediate emotional sway, and 0 points for positive emotional residue.
Most of the manipulation work between Crowley and Cas is compressed into a single episode, “The Man Who Would Be King” (6x20), but even in that condensed format, we can see similar patterns to what Ruby did with Sam:
Castiel is in deep trouble and his first impulse is to go to Dean. But once he’s actually there, looking at Dean, he hesitates. And, in that moment of hesitation, Crowley swoops in.
Crowley: “Ah, Castiel. Angel of Thursday. Just not your day is it?”
Castiel: “What are you doing here?”
Crowley: “I want to help you help me help ourselves.”
Castiel: “Speak plain.”
Crowley: “I want to discuss a simple business transaction. That’s all.”
Castiel: “You want to make a deal? With me? I’m an Angel, you ass. I don’t have a soul to sell.”
Crowley: “But that’s it, isn’t it? It’s all of it. It’s the souls. It all comes down to the souls in the end, doesn’t it?”
Castiel: “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Crowley: “I’m talking about Raphael’s head on a pike. I’m talking about happy endings for all of us, with all possible entendres intended. Come on. Just a chat.”
Castiel: “I have no interest in talking with you.”
Crowley: “Why not? I’m very interesting. Come on. Hear me out. Five minutes. No obligations. I promise – I’ll make it worth your while.”
He then tries a few different angles in his 'sell’ – the angels love you, God loves you, you’re better than everyone else at this kind of thing, God wants you to save everyone (including Dean and Sam) – until he gets Cas’s agreement.
Once Crowley has the fish on the hook, the next phase starts – isolation. Here, Edlund worked in Castiel’s few appearances during season six and made their very rarity part of the storyline. Cas was deliberately not going to the boys because it was part of the arrangement with Crowley.
Crowley: “Ah, yes. But is that all you’re holding? See…the stench of that Impala’s all over your overcoat, Angel. I thought we’d agreed - no more nights out with the boys.”
Castiel: “I spoke with Dean. I needed to know what they know.”
Crowley: “About what? About me, maybe? 'Cause I happen to have it on good authority that your two little pets are currently trying to hunt me down! Forgive me, but I think you might have a little conflict of interest here.”
Crowley has been working to keep Castiel isolated from the Winchesters, in order to keep Castiel’s focus on Crowley and their 'partnership’.
Castiel: “You sent demons after them?”
Crowley: “You kill my hunters. Why can’t I kill yours?”
Castiel: “They’re my friends.”
Crowley: “You can’t have friends, not anymore. I mean, my God. You’re losing it!”
Castiel: “I’m fine.”
Crowley: “Yeah. You’re the very picture of mental health. Come on. You don’t think I know what this is all about?”
Castiel: “Enlighten me.”
Crowley: “The big lie – the Winchesters still buy it. The good Cas, the righteous Cas. And long as they still believe it, you get to believe it. Well, I got news for you, kitten. A whore is a whore is a whore.”
Before Castiel bit down on the hook, Crowley told him he was God’s chosen to fix Heaven. Now that Cas has been making the wrong choices and been isolated from his friends, and it seems like there’s no way out, Crowley doesn’t sugar-coat his words. He’s still putting himself and Cas on the same level – the new devil and the new God – but he also makes sure that Cas feels like he can’t go back. And much like Ruby told Sam that Dean was weak, Crowley tells Cas that the Winchesters are 'holding him back’.
But, ultimately, Crowley may have tempted and isolated Castiel, but he never got Cas to actually trust him. And that meant, when it came down to the big moment, Castiel turned his back on Crowley along with everyone else (Balthazar, Dean and Sam, his angelic lieutenants), trusting only to himself.
It’s not for lack of trying – Crowley tries to argue that he’s trustworthy, that he’s reliable in ways that Sam and Dean aren’t. But Cas never quite buys it. Even if he can’t trust anyone else, he’s still not going to trust Crowley.
Cas doesn’t like Crowley before, during, or after their season six 'partnership’, and his especial sticking point that gets him to turn on Crowley is that he isn’t willing to trust Crowley with too much power. While Cas’s choices do reverberate throughout the rest of his character arc, much of that ends up being more about what he does while under the influence of the souls – and his own arrogance in believing he could control them – while his contempt for Crowley as a person remains much unchanged from how it was before they went through their manipulation dance.
Meg->Castiel
Meg had completely lost her power base and support by the time we met up with her in season seven. She spotted amnesiac!Cas with Dean and knew an opportunity when she saw one. She could see what a difficult time Dean was having dealing with a Castiel who was not entirely himself, and took advantage (Meg taunts Dean over Cas more than once, so I’m guessing personal revenge was also an additional motive for her). Due to the episode circumstances, Dean himself was the one who isolated Cas away with Meg, giving her the opportunity to 'work on’ him. Meg had one goal at this point in time – do whatever she can to try to kill Crowley. While Meg was able to create several positive emotional associations between herself and Cas, she wasn’t able to be as successful as she wanted. She showed clear frustration over the fact that she was never able to convince him to have sex with her, something that she might have believed would help cement the bond she was attempting to create and get him to side with her over the Winchesters.
Meg wasn’t very effective at aiming her weapon, except in getting him to point away from her. However, enough positive residue from her manipulation remained that he didn’t want to kill her in season eight and that he used her nickname for him when he was hiding his identity in season nine (fittingly during an episode where he encountered an angel/reaper who manipulated him in similar ways as Meg had, though for a different endgame). But while Cas develops a 'soft spot’ for Meg, his loyalties never fundamentally shift from the Winchesters (and, especially, Dean) or the angels.
Note that Meg attempts to continue her same pattern of manipulation in season eight that she had established in season seven – trying to place them on the same level, and trying to leverage Cas’s sympathy for her into a sexual bond. She also continues to show contempt for him as a person – her positive comments about him in “Goodbye Stranger” (8x17) are about him sexually or are about reinforcing and praising the idea that he’s as 'bad’ as she is (similar to Ruby praising Sam for being 'stronger’ than Dean and Crowley praising Dean for being a 'worthy’ successor to the father of murder). It’s praise that’s meant to encourage the target towards the manipulator’s perspective.
I’ll give her 2 points for immediate results, 3 points for immediate emotional sway, and 3 points for positive emotional residue.
Key moments:
In “The Born-Again Identity” (7x17), Meg makes it clear from the start that her end-goal is to kill Crowley but that, in order to achieve her goal, she has to make 'friends’. Enemy-of-my-enemy stuff, which Dean doesn’t want to have to buy into but feels like he has no choice.
Meg: “Now picture Crowley with his hands on harmless little amnesia-Cas. Don’t get me wrong. I’m gonna burn that smarmy dick. My time’s coming. But right about now, my army-of-one situation is not cutting it. It’s cold out here, there’s a price on my ass, and I need friends.”
Dean: “Yeah. I get that. But I ain’t it.”
Meg: “That’s where you’re wrong, Dean. 'Cause I’m here to help you, and that makes us friends.”
Dean: “Help, huh? You mean see if you can’t turn harmless little Cas out there into an angel-sized weapon?”
Meg: “Like you’re taking him caroling. And by the way, you really want to keep going with no backup? Hey, I don’t trust you, either. But I could really use Emmanuel. And he trusts you. So for now, it’s in everyone’s best interests to hold hands and cross the street together, okay?”
She also 'jokingly’ threatens to sexually assault Cas the way that she did back in “Caged Heat” (6x10): “You sure we wouldn’t be safer traveling with a full-throttle angel? I could jog his memory. Kidding! We wouldn’t want to upset the poor guy.”
From the very start, she works on Cas/Emmanuel to try to get his trust: “Meg. Just here for moral support. I mean, after all, we go way back. Dean and me. Just met you, of course. But I think we’re gonna be good friends, too.”
When Cas is doing what Meg wants him to do (reclaim his power/memory), she gives him praise: “I believe in the little tree topper.” “That’s my boy.” “That was beautiful, Clarence.” Again, this is something we see in the other relationships like this, too – Ruby praising Sam, Crowley praising Dean, etc. Carrot as well as stick.
At this point, Cas is almost entirely non-responsive to Meg’s words and reacting mainly to Dean – it’s the upcoming isolation period that gives her the time and space to get to him on an emotional level. Because Dean is near his own personal breaking point, he ends up leaving the comatose Cas alone with Meg to look after while he tries to hunt down more information on getting rid of Dick Roman.
After Cas wakes up in “Reading is Fundamental” (7x21) and he’s been mentally altered by his experiences with Sam’s hell trauma, we see Meg bounce between two main emotions – possessiveness/ownership over him and annoyance that he’s not useful to her in his current state. Cas’s vulnerability gives her an 'in’ that she would not otherwise have, but his pacifism makes him less likely to be her perfect angelic weapon.
First, we see an example of the annoyance:
Meg: “Right? He’s been like the naked guy at the rave ever since he woke up. Totally useless.”
Castiel: “Will you look at her? My caretaker. All of that thorny pain. So beautiful.”
Meg: “We’ve been over this. I don’t like poetry. Put up or shut up.”
She’s frustrated both with his uselessness and with, how even useless as he is right now, he still won’t have sex with her. Cas is, of course, all over the place in this episode and the next one we see him in, working out the hell trauma.
Then, with Sam, we see the possessiveness/ownership:
Meg: “Okay, fine. I’ll hit the road, then. Let me just go get my angel.”Sam: “Meg, what are you talking about? Stop.”
Meg: “We both call, who do you think Cas will come to? I’m guessing me. You heard him – thorny beauty, blah, blah. I’m the saint who stayed with him. He owes me. His words.”
Sam: “Yeah, what about what he owes us?”
Meg: “Well, work on him a little. Maybe he’ll start crushing on you, too, hot stuff.”
Sam: “What are you gonna do with a broken angel? Don’t be stupid.”
Meg: “I’ll take power where I can get it. I’ve got myself to look out for.”
Of note is that Dean is completely out of this conversation. While Meg and Sam are arguing over Cas’s usefulness, Dean is attempting to figure out how to approach Cas the way he is now, and trying to figure out if their hard-earned relationship can recover from the blows it’s taken.
Later in the episode, Meg remains completely clear about her 'cause’:
Meg: “Typical. I save our bacon, and you’re sitting here, waiting by a devil’s trap. Seriously, I just killed two of Crowley’s men. I could have gone the other way on that.”
Castiel: “It’s true, incidentally. There’s other demons’ blood on that blade.”
Meg: “Look, I’m simpler than you think. I’ve figured one thing out about this world – just one, pretty much. You find a cause, and you serve it. Give yourself over, and it orders your life. Lucifer and Yellow Eyes – their mission was it for me.”
Dean: “So, what? We should trust you because you wanted to free Satan from Hell?”
Meg: “I’m talking 'cause’, douchebag, as in reason to get up in the morning. Obviously, these things shift over time. We learn, we grow. Now, for me currently, the cause is bringing down the King. And I know we’ll need help to do it.”
Dean: “Crowley ain’t the problem this year.”
Meg: “When are you gonna get it? Crowley’s always the problem. He’s just waiting for the right moment to strike. I know what I’m supposed to do. And it isn’t screw with Sam and Dean or lose the only angel who’d go to bat for me.”
This is the same motivation that she proves to have in 8x17, as well – she wants to kill Crowley, and the best way to do that is to stay on the good side of Sam, Dean, and Castiel. She does, ultimately, fail to kill Crowley, but making the attempt was her goal all along and she never tried to hide that.
Killing Crowley was the end, and 'befriending’ Sam, Dean, and Cas were the means. Everything she does from this point forward serves that end. Manipulating Cas is just collateral damage, really, from her perspective.
In “Survival of the Fittest” (7x23), we see that this version of Cas continues to frustrate Meg:
Meg: “You deal with him. I can’t anymore.”
Dean: “You might want to be more specific.”
Meg: “I was laying low halfway across the world when emo boy pops up out of nowhere and zaps me right back here.”
Dean: “Why?”
Meg: “Go ask him. He was your boyfriend first.”
Cas decides that Meg might be useful to the Winchesters, so he takes her to them. She’s annoyed by that, so she immediately pawns him off onto Dean. At this point in time, his annoyance factor is outweighing his potential usefulness factor.
But, when Crowley threatens Meg, Cas moves to protect her. Thus proving his potential usefulness. It really does bounce back and forth for her in these two episodes. Then she gets captured by Crowley.
When we see her again in “Goodbye Stranger”, she’s been tortured, but her cause and M.O. remains mostly the same. Killing Crowley is still her ultimate goal – even more than before – and helping Dean, Sam, and Cas remains her best way to take her shot at him.
In Meg and Cas’s only scene alone, we see her testing her power over Cas and trying to find his limits – first with sexual innuendo, then emotional, then back to sexual. We know from her 'put up or shut up’ comments back in season seven that she’s been trying (and failing) to get Cas to have sex with her pretty consistently all-throughout the manipulation process. Here, she tries three separate times to get him to respond to her sexual overtures – the 'nethers’ comment, the 'remember everything’ one, and then 'move furniture’. The last time, she moves from making a sexual suggestion to making an assumption – against all previous evidence, she states that Cas will have sex with her, despite him having turned her down every time before.
Castiel: “These wounds have festered.”
Meg: “You really do know how to make a girl’s nethers quiver, don’t you?”
Castiel: “I am aware of how to do that. Although it doesn’t usually involve cleaning wounds.”
Meg: “Why are you so sweet on me, Clarence?”
Castiel: “I don’t know. And I still don’t know who Clarence is.”
Meg: “Would it kill you to watch a movie, read a book?”*
Castiel: “A movie, no. But a book with the proper spells – yeah, it could, theoretically, kill me.”
Meg: “You know, you’re much cuter when you’re shutting up. So, which Cas are you now? Original make and model or crazy town?”
Castiel: “I’m just me.”
Meg: “So, your noodle’s back in order?”
Castiel: “Yeah, my… noodle remembers everything. I think it’s a pretty good noodle.”
Meg: “Really? You remember everything?”
Castiel: “If you’re referring to the pizza man… Yes, I remember the pizza man. And it’s a good memory.”
Meg: “You ever miss the Apocalypse?”
Castiel: “No. Why would I miss the end of times?”
Meg: “I miss the simplicity. I was bad. You were good. Life was easier. Now it’s all so messy. I’m kind of good, which sucks. And you’re kind of bad – which is actually all manner of hot. We survive this… I’m gonna order some pizza and we’re gonna move some furniture around. You understand?”
Castiel: “No, I-I – wait – actually… Yes, I –”
They’re interrupted before any further clarification can happen on Cas’s part, but we do see here the pattern from other relationships – praise of the person being 'bad’ because them being bad makes them more like the manipulator. We also have her constantly pushing at his boundaries and testing to see how well her manipulation in season seven has stuck.
Meg dies facing off against Crowley – she’d have preferred to win, but she knew the chance she was taking, and killing him was her cause – so we don’t see how she would have further pushed at Cas’s boundaries and his consistent 'no’s when it came to having sex with her. For Cas’s part, the damage Meg’s manipulation did to him likely folded into all of the other damage Cas was dealing with at the time and didn’t stand out to him in particular. The way she died also would ensure that if he thought about her, it would more likely be about her being, for that moment, on the Winchesters’ side, rather than about her manipulation or about the times she’s hurt them in the past. So, while she didn’t get the results that she was hoping for out of targeting Cas, she did leave a lasting emotional impact, albeit a relatively low-key one.
* side note: “Meta Fiction” (9x18), Metatron – “Would it have killed you to pick up a book, watch a movie?” Same writer in both episodes, so it’s a pretty obvious intentional call-back to Meg. And, just after this, Metatron forces information into Cas’s head without his consent, just as Meg assumes Cas will have sex with her, without ever receiving his consent. Both Metatron and Meg assume Castiel’s consent is not a requirement.
Crowley->Kevin
During season eight, when Crowley has more of a power base, he doesn’t bother doing much direct manipulating of Kevin, instead favoring torture and threats. As Kevin’s inner strength grows, Crowley resorts to attempting to trick information out of Kevin, which also fails. Once Crowley’s power has been taken away from him in season nine, we see him shift to a more subtle approach, offering Kevin bribes, attempting to poison Kevin’s relationship with the Winchesters, and trying to position the two of them as fellow victims of Sam and Dean. He has one big success near the beginning of season nine, but it only lasts until Dean’s conversation with Kevin. Crowley was never able to truly isolate Kevin from the Winchesters, not during the time period when he needed to do so, and so his attempts with Kevin weren’t as successful as his manipulations of Castiel and Dean.
It’s unknown how long the effects of Crowley’s manipulation would have lasted if Kevin had not been killed by Gadreel, but Crowley gets 2 points for immediate results and 2 points for immediate emotional sway. He got Kevin to doubt the Winchesters but, ultimately, Dean was able to overcome those doubts.
Key moments:
Way back in the start of season eight, when Crowley has just lost out on keeping Kevin, he does his best to make sure that the Winchesters don’t get him either: “I know we’re not mates, Kevin, but one word of advice – run. Run far and run fast. 'Cause the Winchesters – well, they have a habit of using people up and watching them die bloody. Toodles.”
And this works – instead of staying with Sam and Dean, Kevin and Linda go off on their own. The next time we see them, Kevin is being kidnapped by Crowley, then tortured. Crowley explicitly mentions liking Kevin more than the other potential prophets because Kevin seems smarter and 'plucky’, but has no hesitation when it comes to maiming him or threatening to kill him if he doesn’t cooperate. Crowley liking someone doesn’t mean that he will refrain from hurting them. And this is true of demons in general – someone can amuse them or attract them, but that won’t stop them from getting rid of that person if they need to.
In “Taxi Driver” (8x19), we have threats and in “The Great Escapist” (8x21), Crowley tries to use trickery. Both fail. Kevin has grown up and hardened since “A Little Slice of Kevin” (8x07). Kevin looks his own possible death right in the eyes and doesn’t blink.
Of course, then he doesn’t die. Kevin is walking wounded in season nine – the brothers failed to keep their promises to him (again), Crowley is still alive, and he’s still being forced to keep on with the 'job’ that has taken away everything in his life that mattered to him.
In “Devil May Care” (9x02), we get an abbreviated manipulation arc for Kevin – Crowley dangles the possibility of Linda being alive (true), encourages Kevin to torture him to get his emotions out (and planting the notion that Kevin is on the same level as Crowley as a fellow torturer), pushes on the idea that the Winchesters will sacrifice his life for each other, and then makes his pitch – let’s escape together.
Kevin: “You tortured me.”
Crowley: “I torture all my friends. It’s how I show love. I was raised in a dysfunctional home environment.”
Kevin: “You killed my mom!”
Crowley: “Did I? I mean, are you sure? Did you ever see her body? I mean, how can you be sure she’s dead? You can do better than that, little man. That’s right. Let it all out. There. Now that you’ve felt your feels, maybe we can talk.”
Kevin: “No.”
Crowley: “Gonna make this simple, Kevin. Let me go, and I’ll give you back your mother.”
Kevin: “She’s dead.”
Crowley: “Oh, she wishes she was. After what I had my heavies do to her, she’s begging for it. But when have you ever known me to let anyone off easy? You think Sam and Dean care about her? Huh? You think they care about you? You are just here to serve their needs. Nothing more. You’re gonna lose, Kevin. Everything. It’s just a matter of time. When the Winchesters are done with you, they’ll toss you aside without a second thought because they can. Because they think they’re special. And because, well, there’s always another prophet waiting in the wings. I’m the one in chains, but we’re both prisoners here. What say, you let me go, and we walk out those doors together? What say we both win?”
But though Kevin does attempt to leave himself at the end of the episode, he doesn’t free Crowley. Like with Cas, Crowley might have gotten Kevin to doubt the Winchesters, but that didn’t lead to Kevin trusting Crowley. And even the doubts Crowley planted about the Winchesters are dispelled in a short conversation with Dean (which ties into the time deficiency Crowley was working on at this point).
Crowley->Dean
What Crowley is at his core is an opportunist – we see him looking for vulnerabilities all throughout the first part of season nine (most notably, poking at Kevin, but he also leaps to take advantage of the Sam/Gadreel situation). It’s in “Road Trip” (9x10) that he finally really spots something that he can exploit and, once he sees that, he narrows his focus. He can see that Dean is in a very emotionally vulnerable place and he steps in to take advantage of that. Dean had already isolated himself from his brother and his best friend, so there’s plenty of room for Crowley to step in and attempt to take their places.
Crowley played Dean like a flute, once he knew what tune he wanted to play. He positioned him carefully, worked hard to try to establish them as 'family’, 'besties’, or whatever else might work. While Dean resisted those labels, he still ending up doing what Crowley wanted him to do, his own priorities (hunting down Gadreel) ending up on a lower rung than Crowley’s (killing Abaddon).
I’ll give Crowley 5 points for immediate results and 2 points for immediate emotional sway, however, now that Dean is demonic himself, it remains to be seen how much Crowley’s manipulation will continue to be effective.
Crowley’s full-blown manipulation of Dean starts in 9x10 – Crowley has been trying to find ways out all season, and he finally gets his chance in “Road Trip”. Crowley studies Dean in this episode, and then the end of the episode sets him up perfectly for his chance at Dean – Crowley has freedom while Dean has just isolated himself from the people he loves. An isolation aided (among many other things) by Crowley’s words near the start of the episode:
Crowley: “I told him this was gonna happen. I was the only person who tried to warn him. I told him to run.”
Dean: “From what?”
Crowley: “You. How many times am I gonna have to say this? People in your general vicinity don’t have much in the way of a life-span.”
Dean echoes this idea at the end of the episode: “I’m poison, Sam. People get close to me, they get killed…or worse.”
In “First Born” (9x11), Crowley presses his advantage. He sets up the Mark of Cain business from start to finish – Dean even calls him on it being a set-up at the end of the episode. Dean is alone and pretty clearly marinating in his own feelings of self-loathing, so he goes along. He gives Crowley a chance to make his argument.
Crowley takes that inch and pushes and pushes throughout the episode – he calls himself Dean’s family (gets threatened over it), calls himself Dean’s best friend (gets an eyeroll). But Dean keeps listening.
Crowley makes a big deal at the very end of the season of never lying to Dean, but that doesn’t keep him from pretending he’s surprised and scared to see Cain when that was exactly what he wanted. And it doesn’t keep him from lies of omission. And what Crowley does here is a microcosm of what he does in the rest of the season – he tricks Dean into doing exactly what he wants Dean to do, all while technically 'not lying’ to him.
Crowley: “He was right, you know. You are worthy.”
Dean: “Oh, great. Now you’re gonna get all touchy-feely, too?”
Crowley: “Your problem, mate, is that nobody hates you more than you do. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Dean: “So, how do we find this Blade?”
Crowley: “You can’t search the bottom of the ocean, but I can. So, I’ll find it and bring it to its new owner.”
Dean: “I saw you, Crowley. Back at Cain’s. You dusted that undercard demon, and then you just sat back and watched the main event. You knew. You knew about the mark. You knew about Abaddon and Cain. You knew all of it. And you played me. Why?”
Crowley: “He would never have given me the Blade. Who can say no to you? I needed you to play along.”
Dean: “You knew we were being followed, and you didn’t say anything.”
Crowley: “Well, Cain would want we were to see his prize fighter up close. You plus demons equals fight night.”
Dean: “Tara died. Thanks to you.”
Crowley: “Omelets. Broken eggs. Et cetera.”
Dean: “After I kill Abaddon, you’re next!”
Crowley: “You don’t mean that. We’re having too much fun.”
“First Born” serves as the template for what Crowley does for the rest of the season, slowly walking Dean into darker and darker places. “Blade Runners” (9x16) is another big step, then killing Abaddon in “King of the Damned” (9x21), all set-pieces to bring Dean further and further along a path that Crowley means to be one-way. He’s decided that he wants to have 'fun’ with Dean, that he wants to break Dean into something as dark as Crowley himself. And, as of “Do You Believe In Miracles?” (9x23), he believes he’s about to succeed. “Let’s go howl at that moon.”
But Crowley’s big weakness lies in his overestimation of his own charisma. He keeps thinking people are more emotionally invested in him than they actually are. He thought he and Cas were genuine partners in season six and this was never the case. Cas never had any positive feelings about Crowley at any point on-screen that we saw. Crowley tried to do a lot of emotional build-up work with Cas (in what we saw from 6x20) and pretty much zero percent of it worked, which meant that it wasn’t hard for Cas to decide to betray Crowley once he’d figured out how he was going to do it.
Kevin might have been planning to leave the bunker until he talked to Dean, but he was never going to take Crowley with him. Crowley failed to establish an emotional bond there, too.
And now Crowley has taken advantage of Dean’s vulnerability and isolation to position himself as being Dean’s ~emotional partner~ and yet it’s… really a mixed-bag, results-wise, at least when you look at how hard Crowley worked at it. After months of emotional manipulation, he managed to reach all the way up to the glorious heights of… 'begrudging tolerance’. And our season ten spoilers imply that even that isn’t going to last long.
That’s where Crowley’s downfall generally seems to come in – he overestimates how attached people are to him and so he doesn’t see the knife in the back coming. We can see it clearly in “Mother’s Little Helper” (9x17) – he believes that Dean saved Crowley, rather than saving the young hunter. He misjudged Dean’s motives and believed that Dean cared about Crowley’s life. And I do think it’s notable that Crowley doesn’t decide Dean is 'ready’ to take on Abaddon (which triggered the uncontrollable killing urges) until he believed that Dean valued him enough to save his life.
Jake: “But he did do exactly what you said he would. He saved you.”
Crowley: “Of course he saved me. We’re besties. And now he’s ready.”
Crowley protests back in “Sacrifice” (8x23) that he 'deserves’ to be loved. His weakness, as we go into season ten, is that he believes he’s capable of inspiring love, loyalty, and trust.
Now, we’ll get to see the effects of Crowley’s manipulations in full-bloom, as demon!Dean takes the stage. Even before we got the season ten spoilers, I didn’t think it would be likely that Crowley would get what he was hoping for out of the relationship, but it’ll definitely be fun to watch Crowley’s house of cards blow down.
A last thought:
Demons – and their choices – have always been a dark mirror, the abyss looking back. Someone who was a fervent true believer as a human will likely retain that quality as a demon but twist it to evil ends and means, while someone who was a loose cannon as a human will likely be no more reliable as a demon. The demon that Hell makes out of someone is the worst person that they could ever be, in all the worlds that could exist.
While demonic possession tends to serve as an analogy for real-world actions and is not a personal reflection of the person being possessed, the manipulation that demons do isn’t a metaphor for anything – manipulators and abusers like Crowley, Ruby, and Meg all exist in the real world. Throwing people off-balance, praising them when they reflect your world-view and degrading them when they don’t, using words and situations to trick people into doing what you want, and setting people up for failure so that you can either rub it in their face or save them… these are all things that they could just as easily do as humans. Demons, in general, represent the lowest parts of humanity in Supernatural, because that’s exactly what they are – Demons are the darkest, most twisted parts of what a specific person can be. The abuse that they choose to do as demons is, thus, most likely an amplified and darkened version of the worst parts of who they were as humans.
_
Notes: Thanks to all of the many awesome people I’ve had conversations with about SPN demons over the last couple of years. All of those talks, both private and public, have definitely helped me refine my views on this topic. Special shout-out to selfihateyouithink, for the many convos we’ve had, which are always illuminating. Credit for all SPN quotes goes to the irreplaceable SupernaturalWiki’s transcripts; I was able to rewatch some but not all of the relevant episodes, so the transcripts were a wonderful gift. Also, there’s a random Wheel of Time reference in this post. Not really for any particular reason.
Further Reading: Just a couple of pieces that came out while I was writing this, but reading them inevitably had an effect on my thought process. I originally had some more saved, but I lost the folder they were in, sadly. If I find them again, I’ll edit them in.
Crowley
Crowley Never Lies by amagicbeyond: (http://amagicbeyond.tumblr.com/post/90455167875/its-fundamental-crowley-never-lies)
A Step-By-Step Guide by dustydreamsanddirtyscars: (http://dustydreamsanddirtyscars.tumblr.com/post/91069125843/i-see-a-bad-moon-rising-a-quick-step-by)
Meg
Meg’s Abuse by selfihateyouithink: (http://selfihateyouithink.tumblr.com/post/90433876069/long-post-megs-abuse-buffy-spoilers-and)